The fourth session of Challenges and Safeguards against AI-Generated Disinformation will discuss Language Model Detectors Are Easily Optimized Against with Charlotte Nicks and Sergey Sanovich on Thursday, November 21, 2024 at 4:00 pm in Annenberg Conference Room, Shultz Building.

Read the paper here

Language Model Detectors Are Easily Optimized Against

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Charlotte Nicks is a senior at Stanford, studying mathematics and electrical engineering. She has been selected as a Stanford STEM Fellow and worked at the IRIS Lab at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory on AI detection. Her academic interests include signal processing, machine learning, and complex analysis. She has served as co-President of Affiliated Stanford Entrepreneurial Students, Stanford’s global entrepreneurship society, and Stanford Students in Biodesign. During summers, Charlotte interned as a quantitative trader at Jane Street and as an autonomy engineer at AeroVironment.

Sergey Sanovich is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Before joining the Hoover Institution, Sergey Sanovich was a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. Sanovich received his PhD in political science from New York University and continues his affiliation with its Center for Social Media and Politics. His research is focused on disinformation and social media platform governance; online censorship and propaganda by authoritarian regimes; and elections and partisanship in information autocracies. His work has been published at the American Political Science ReviewComparative PoliticsResearch & Politics, and Big Data, and as a lead chapter in an edited volume on disinformation from Oxford University Press. Sanovich has also contributed to several policy reports, particularly focusing on protection from disinformation, including “Securing American Elections,” issued by the Stanford Cyber Policy Center at its launch.


ABOUT THE SERIES

Distinguishing between human- and AI-generated content is already an important enough problem in multiple domains – from social media moderation to education – that there is a quickly growing body of empirical research on AI detection and an equally quickly growing industry of its non/commercial applications. But will current tools survive the next generation of LLMs, including open models and those focused specifically on bypassing detection? What about the generation after that? Cutting-edge research, as well as presentations from leading industry professionals, in this series will clarify the limits of detection in the medium- and long-term and help identify the optimal points and types of policy intervention. This series is organized by Sergey Sanovich.

Upcoming Events

Thursday, September 10, 2026
Immigration
What's New In Civics For 2026?
The Alliance for Civics in the Academy hosts "What's New in Civics for 2026? " with Jenna Silber Storey, William Howell, and Roosevelt Montas on… Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Tuesday, September 15, 2026 6:30 PM ET
Markus Wolf
Book Talk: "The Troika: The Troika: A Story Of Three Families, Friendship, And The Cold War"
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives is partnering with the International Spy Museum to co-host a hybrid event on "The Troika", Markus Wolf'… International Spy Museum (700 L'Enfant Plaza, SW Washington DC 20024)
Thursday, September 24, 2026 12:00 PM PT
Yellow Peril Newspaper Excerpt
The Kaiser's Warning: How A 1908 Interview Wrongly Predicted The Transformation Of American Racism
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives at Stanford University and the Japanese Association for Migration Studies will co-host a virtual… Zoom
overlay image